This invention relates to compositions and methods to stimulate wound healing. More particularly, this invention relates to the use of compositions including placental alkaline phosphates for stimulating wound healing.
People afflicted with long-term illness run the risk of getting bed sores, pressure sores and a myriad of skin irritations and chronic wounds. Cancer patients, in particular breast cancer patients, treated with radiation face the risk of skin burns. Wound healing after surgical intervention has been historically problematic. The benefits of surgery, even in life threatening situations, are offset by the formation of disfiguring scar tissue. Adult wound healing is characterized by fibrosis, scarring, and sometimes by contracture.
Fibroblast cells, located in the dermal layer, play important roles in wound healing by, for example, producing components of the extracellular matrix like collagen and various cytokines, which, in turn, enhance the proliferation and migration of keratinocytes. Keratinocytes are located in the epidermal layer and form a barrier against the external environment.
Healing of wounds is the results of interplay among different cell types and various growth factors. Some of the growth factors, including platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF), transforming growth factor α (TGF-α) and insulin like growth factor I (IGF-I), are considered to play significant roles by enhancing proliferation of fibroblasts and/or keratinocytes while TGF-β appears to primarily act via increasing matrix formation.
Normal wound healing is also characterized by the production of collagen. In adult skin, fibroblasts present at the wound site usually produce more collagen than necessary for optimal healing due to the stimulatory actions of TGF-β and PDGF. Excess collagen then leads to the undesirable formation of scar tissue.